Tour de Yorkshire: Lars Petter Nordhaug takes stage one glory

Updated 02/05/2015 at 10:44 GMT

Lars Petter Nordhaug (Team Sky) profited from having a team-mate in a five-man breakaway to win a tight sprint on the opening stage of the Tour de Yorkshire in Scarborough.

Norway's Lars-Petter Nordhaug of Team Sky (Reuters)

Image credit: Reuters

As the riders jostled for position in the closing stages, the Norwegian worked with Phillip Deignan to control the group before launching a successful attack.

Thomas Voeckler (Team Europcar) and Stephane Rossetto (Cofidis) finished second and third respectively on the 174-kilometre trip from Bridlington.

Marcel Kittel (Giant-Alpecin) stopped on his return to racing from illness, while Ben Swift (Team Sky) and Eddie Dunbar (NFTO) abandoned after a crash 50km from the finish which left the latter with a suspected broken clavicle.

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"With the spectators here, it’s massive," said Nordhaug. "I feel I am riding at home for Sky, so this is really great.

"The team was so strong today. They were riding all day to make it hard. We were riding for Ben Swift but I heard he was crashing pretty hard, so that’s a shame, but then I had to try and do something.

"This stage was a lot harder than I thought. That was because we were riding hard as a team. It will be hard the next two days."

Yorkshire was handed its own stage race after hosting a successful Grand Depart for last year’s Tour de France. The three-stage event concludes on Sunday.

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Stage one results

1 Lars Petter Nordhaug (Nor) Team Sky 4:22:28

2 Thomas Voeckler (Fra) Team Europcar

3 Stéphane Rossetto (Fra) Cofidis, Solutions Credits

4 Samuel Sanchez (Spa) BMC Racing Team

5 Philip Deignan (Irl) Team Sky

6 Anthony Turgis (Fra) Cofidis, Solutions Credits

7 Greg Van Avermaet (Bel) BMC Racing Team 0:01:08

8 Erick Roswell (GBr) Madison Genesis 0:01:10

9 Richard Handley (Gbr) JLT Condor